Major League Baseball has signed a resale ticketing partnership with SeatGeek, a five-year agreement that will pay MLB a minimum of $400 million, according to people familiar with the details.
The partnership, announced Monday morning, is mainly a revenue sharing agreement, where the two sides will share upside from MLB tickets purchased on the platform, said the people, who were granted anonymity because the financial specifics are private. The $400 million is the minimum guarantee across the contract, meaning MLB could end up being paid more depending on sales volume.
Representatives for both MLB and SeatGeek declined to comment on the terms.
Under the partnership, which includes all 30 MLB teams and starts this season, SeatGeek will be the official resale ticket partner across MLB. Teams will push fans towards SeatGeek’s website, and tickets will have scannable barcodes that allow them to be easily resold on the platform. SeatGeek will also share data with baseball, giving teams access to valuable information on who’s attending games and what their preferences are. The revenue and data share ensures that both sides have motivation to direct buyers and sellers to SeatGeek over other options.
It’s the second major resale partnership inked this month by the mobile-first ticketing company. In early February SeatGeek announced an exclusive deal with Learfield-owned Paciolan, a ticketing and fundraising platform with extensive reach in college sports. Both MLB and Paciolan were previously partnered with StubHub.
The investments follow a period of rapid change for SeatGeek, which last year had a $1.35 billion deal to go public via merger with a SPAC led by Gerry Cardinale and Billy Beane. The deal was called off in June, just hours before the shareholder vote, with both sides citing unfavorable market conditions. Two months later, SeatGeek raised $238 million at a $1 billion valuation from a group that included Arctos Sports Partners and Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith. At the time, the company said its 2022 revenue numbers were on pace to double its $186.3 million from 2021.
SeatGeek now has major deals across all five major U.S. leagues.
